This invention relates to a modular printer. The invention relates particularly, but not necessarily exclusively, to a modular commercial printer for effecting high speed, digital, photographic quality, commercial printing. The invention relates specifically to drying equipment for a printer for aiding drying of a printed image on a web of print media.
In high speed printing, large printing presses are daisy-chained together to print predetermined pages of publications which are then secured together to form the publications. Such printing presses occupy an extremely large volume and are very expensive.
The applicant has also proposed a commercial printer using a number of floor mounted printers having pagewidth print heads. This commercial printer is intended for extremely high production rates such as up to five 180 page documents per second.
To achieve such high production rates, large quantities of consumables need to be readily available for the printers. Thus, once again, such a commercial printer needs to occupy an extremely large volume although the cost of such a printer is considerably lower than equivalent high end, commercial printers which do not use the applicant""s Memjet (Memjet is a trade mark of Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd) technology.
The applicant has recognised a need for a commercial printer which occupies asmaller volume and which has a lower through put rate but of the same quality as the applicant""s previously proposed Memjet commercial printer.
According to the invention, there is provided drying equipment for a printer for aiding drying of a printed image on a web of print media, the equipment including
a feed path between a print engine and a printer exit along which the print media containing the printed image is fed after printing of the image on the print media;
a drive means for driving the web through the feed path at a predetermined rate; and
a supply means, provided generally coextensive along the feed path in the direction of travel of the web, for supplying a flow of drying fluid over at least one surface of the web; wherein,
the flow of drying fluid over the web is substantially parallel to the plane of the web and transverse to the feed path.
Preferably, printing of images takes place on opposed surfaces of the web. Accordingly, the supply means may supply drying fluid to be passed over both surfaces of the web.
The printer may be a pagewidth printer having an inlet, a pagewidth print engine arranged proximate the inlet and an exit, the feed path being defined as a distance between the print engine and the exit.
To aid in drying of the printed image or images, the feed path may have a length which is approximately 1 meter so that the surfaces of the web are in communication with the drying fluid for a sustained period of time. It will be appreciated that the period of time for which the surfaces of the web are in communication with the drying fluid is also dependent on the rate at which the web moves through the printer.
The drying means may include at least one roller set, said at least one roller set being arranged at the inlet of the printer. Preferably, the drive means includes two roller sets, a first roller set being arranged at the inlet and a second roller set being arranged at the exit of the printer.
Then, the length of the feed path may be defined as the distance between the print engine and a centre line of the second roller set.
The drive means may be operable to drive the web through the feed path at a rate of from about 0.5 m/s to about 2 m/s. More particularly, if six xe2x80x9ccolorxe2x80x9d printing is being effected, the web may move at a rate of about 1.6 m/s and, if twelve xe2x80x9ccolorxe2x80x9d printing is being effected, the web may move through the printer at a rate of approximately 0.8 m/s. The term xe2x80x9ccolorxe2x80x9d in this specification includes different colored inks visible in the visible spectrum as well as ink which is invisible in the visible spectrum but visible only in the infrared spectrum, an ink fixative and a print media surface varnish.
The fixative may be used to fix the inks on the surface of the print media and may further facilitate drying of the ink on the print media.
The supply means may include a supply duct arranged alongside the feed path, the supply duct including a connection means for connection to a source of the drying fluid.
The duct may have a length approximating that of the feed path. The duct may have outlet openings which direct drying fluid transversely to a direction of movement of the web along the feed path.
The duct may be arranged alongside an inner surface of one of the side walls of the printer. Then, an opposed side wall of the printer may include vents through which drying fluid may be exhausted from an interior of the printer.
Accordingly, by having a feed path of approximately 1 meter and feeding the web at the desired rate through the feed path, drying of images printed on the web is facilitated. By having the images dried in this manner, high speed printing is facilitated.